The florist asked what color grief is

Dear Delyara, My husband died six months ago, and today would have been our fortieth anniversary. I went to the flower shop and asked for the flowers he used to buy me. The young florist asked what color I wanted. I realized I could not remember. For forty years, flowers appeared on the kitchen table every anniversary, and I had never learned their names or colors because I thought there would always be another year to notice. I remembered the paper, the smell, the way he cut the stems too short, but not whether the flowers were pink or red. I stood there trying to reconstruct my own marriage from petals. The florist waited patiently. Finally, I described them as “the color just before red becomes dark.” She brought out deep coral carnations. The moment I saw them, I knew they were wrong. I bought them anyway because she had tried. At home, I placed them in our anniversary vase and became furious with myself. How can I remember the exact way he cleared his throat before answering the phone but not the flowers he gave me forty times? Tonight, the wrong carnations are on the table. I keep hoping memory will correct them by morning.